Calories – tiny creatures that live in your closet and sew your clothes a little bit tighter every night.......There are 3,500 calories in a single pound of body fat and to put this into context all you have to do is sit on a bike or jump on a treadmill and tell me how long it takes you to burn just 500 calories.  The problem with these little calorie blighters is that they seem to be at their worst around holiday times. The reason of course is that it’s just so much easier to eat the extra calories than to burn them off. Let’s take it as a given that you’re going to overindulge and I will outline below some  advice on how best to manage this.

1)     More conditioning, less strength focus

Strength training is excellent for increasing - muscular tone, bone density and ramping up metabolism. I would always bias training towards improving both mobility and strength but during holidays the focus must be firmly placed on burning calories and letting your strength take a slight backseat in emphasis. This does NOT mean you perform no strength work, it means you push your calorie output per session more than time spent working on the main strength movements.

This must be put within the context of the situation at hand, which is, a higher than typical number of calories coming in so we need a higher than typical number of calories going out or burning off.

To understand this more clearly – If you have 20mins to train do you A) spend 5mins warming up then 15mins working on your brining your deadlift numbers up, where the calorie output will be quite low or do you B) spend 5mins warming up and then putting some light deadlifts into a circuit of movements that will have you out of breath, such as, as many rounds as possible in 15mins of - 10 deadlifts, 8 push ups, 6 pull ups, 10 calories or 1min of work at 70% effort performed on a rower/bike/cross trainer/treadmill?  Clearly B ) – We still get some strength benefits but more importantly than that, more calorie output.

This should also be applied to people that are mainly looking for fat loss. I see no point in spending huge sections of workouts solely focused on pure strength work when it’s clear as day that an overweight person needs to do SOME strength work (maybe about a third of their training session) combined with lots of conditioning or fitness work.

2)     Vary the intensity

Over the past ten years the fitness industry has heavily pushed the suggestion that you’re not training hard enough and you need high intensity workouts to get results. What this has led to is an abuse of intensity. People try to cover up their lack of consistency in their training by doing higher intensity workouts, they think it’s what was missing in their training before they got going so they look to and are encouraged to make all sessions high intensity. This very often leads to injuries, burn out and lack of consistency because they get so sore from certain workouts and often perform movements with poor form.

A professional athlete does not train daily or multiple times a day trying to hit new personal records in each session and crushing themselves daily, because they know it’s unsustainable to train like that. Yet, this is exactly how the high intensity addicted people train because they’re told that there are more benefits to be had at higher NOT lower intensity.

When I propose that you give over more of your workout time towards conditioning I do not mean that it’s got to be done at a high intensity all the time. If you had time to train for 20-40mins, 3-4 times per week then in one of those sessions should you push the intensity dial up to the red line, make one or two of the sessions at a moderate intensity and one session where you show up, do some work and make everything a lower intensity session.

How you feel on the day or week should also be factored in. If you’ve got lots going on with work and/or family then burning the candles at both ends is never going to end well. Higher intensity workouts can be a highly effective way to bring up your fitness and burn calories but it comes at a cost both neurologically and physiologically because they take longer to recover from.

If your body is already drained do you really think it’s a killer workout you need or are we still living in a time where it’s about bigger, better, faster training versus smarter, balanced and daily adjusting of the training? Motivation to train is never going to be high if you’re constantly reinforcing or being told that workouts should be ‘crushing’ or you need to ‘go hard or go home’.

3)     Try this Proposed Session

An example of a training session that ticks all the boxes, some mobility, bit of strength work and a touch of conditioning, would be –

15mins warm up – 1min on the bike/rower/skipping at 50-60% effort, mobility/activation drills for hips, shoulders and ankles. All of this works well - https://youtu.be/OiVQoic0oG8

12mins EMOM (every min on the minute) – on the odd minutes – walking lunges (use weight if you feel like it) 8-10 reps per leg, on the even minutes – one arm rows 8reps per arm or chin ups for 5reps (weighted if you can).

Rest 5mins and do more mobility drills e.g. Jefferson curls, weighted straddle stretch, hanging work off a bar.

12mins EMOM – odd mins – Leg curls with Swiss ball or foam roll 8-10reps or deadlifts 5-8reps, 5-10 press ups (elevate the hands on box/bench as needed), even mins – Hollow hold 20secs, Russian twist 10reps per side or Kettlebell swings 8-10reps.

Perform more mobility work for as long as possible afterwards, there are loads of ideas here - https://youtu.be/l8EgwMa0oYU

These are just a few ideas and if you feel like the session needs more or less intensity you can adjust loading or reps accordingly. A walk outside in the fresh air would also be a great idea and can really help to rejuvenate you.

To keep those calorie blighters from messing with your clothes please keep in mind that you don’t need to punish yourself with extreme workouts, you need to train consistently, burn some calories, don’t worry about push strength numbers during this time and keep the junk food out of sight.  

I also recommend that you ensure you are taking your digestive enzymes to help cope with any overeating or resultant bloating and a good probiotic – I have consistently recommended these as healthy gut flora is vital for good digestionbut given the strong chance of excess sugar and alcohol loaded with less sleep our gut bacteria is under even more pressure than ever so ensure you are taking these daily.